In collaboration with MT/Sprout – Written by:
Entrepreneur Viet Nguyen of scaleup XLINQ has a clear mission: to make reliable software accessible and affordable. Together with his team, he helps more and more customers move forward. “Our toolbox is constantly growing—case by case, customer by customer.”
The developers on entrepreneur Viet Nguyen’s team are just like him: down-to-earth, modest, and skilled at what they do. They enjoy working together and are happy to see each other succeed.
“We love helping others succeed—whether they’re our colleagues, our customers, or other entrepreneurs with innovative ideas,” says Nguyen. “It sounds cliché, but I attribute the company’s growth primarily to my team’s mindset and stability.”
Language barriers in software development
Nguyen is the founder and CEO of the scale-up XLINQ (pronounced “cross link”). The name is derived from “crossing borders, linking people.” With their software platform, they bridge the language gap between software developers and companies in need of innovative and reliable software solutions.
Nguyen has extensive experience in both the business and development sides of the industry. After graduating from Eindhoven University of Technology, he quickly entered the financial sector, where he worked at the intersection of business and IT. He saw room for improvement.
“Developing reliable software for a bank takes a long time and costs a lot of money—often millions or tens of millions. Many digital transformation projects focus on security, compliance, and technology migration—important issues, but the direct impact on customers is often limited.”
“English for Software”
The biggest obstacle is communication between the business side and the developers, says Nguyen. “There’s a huge gap between business knowledge and code. We went back to the drawing board: where does software actually begin? You have to thoroughly document domain knowledge and ensure that the solution is secure and compliant by design in order to develop functionally correct, reliable, and secure software.”
That is why he set out to find a way to systematically capture the logic and domain knowledge of banks and government agencies and prevent misinterpretation. He describes the idea as a kind of “English for software”: a universal language for business software to express domain and business knowledge, captured in processes, data, and user interactions.
Startup from ING Labs
His employer, ING, gave him the time, funding, and a team to develop the idea. He did so within the ING Labs innovation hub. Some innovations remain within the bank to improve the organization, while others eventually become independent companies because they are relevant to the market.
“Too good to be true”
At first, Nguyen’s goal seemed almost impossible to achieve. “People have been looking for ways to improve communication in software development since the last century—why would we be any different?” he says. “But my motto is: if an idea doesn’t seem too good to be true, then it isn’t innovative enough. Fortunately, ING’s innovation board believed in my ambitious vision.”
The result is XLINQ: a platform that allows people without programming knowledge to describe their problem or task. Examples include: software for requesting a transaction or loan, signing a document, or sending data to the government. A software generator converts these tasks into working software.
“We express knowledge in a language that closely resembles natural language—that’s the foundation,” says Nguyen. “After that, it’s all about implementation. One thing remains constant: change. We take that into account in our design. We develop technology that is flexible, reusable, and future-proof.”
Moving forward as an entrepreneur
It was a logical step to continue as a separate limited liability company in 2023, he explains. After all, XLINQ’s solution is also useful for other sectors. “We’re focusing primarily on the financial sector because that’s our background. We’re now working with several banks. Eventually, we’ll be able to help other organizations and types of companies as well.”
Many team members joined his company. Nguyen found a location for his new business in the startup hub B. Amsterdam. “A flexible space like that was ideal, because I didn’t want to be tied down to a five-year lease in case we grew,” he explains. “Plus, it’s a dynamic, informal environment full of like-minded people. That fosters cross-pollination.”
Expansion into other sectors
An unexpected collaboration emerged as early as day one. “I spoke with the outgoing tenant about taking over the laminate flooring at B. Amsterdam,” Nguyen explains. “He works in the insurance industry, where domain knowledge is also crucial for software development. Now we’re exploring together whether we can develop something within the insurance sector.”
How is XLINQ growing?
The more customer cases XLINQ builds, the faster the company can grow. “Customers can develop their own software using XLINQ’s tools. This way, our toolkit keeps growing, case by case, customer by customer. We also offer standard modules that we can flexibly customize. Our ultimate goal is to no longer be directly involved with the customer, but to empower users to help themselves and their own customers.”
No sales department
It’s striking that XLINQ doesn’t have a sales department—just engineers. “Our growth is mainly based on referrals,” he says. “According to marketing agencies, we need to improve our product marketing and positioning. Maybe we’re a bit too modest, but so far, word-of-mouth has worked very well. In my experience, we quickly get into conversations with decision-makers within large companies. For example, I had a phone call last Friday, and I’m already speaking with the CFO tomorrow about a solution.”
Coming up with solutions and testing software: that’s what he enjoys most. “I aim to spend at least half my time on the actual work, though that doesn’t always work out,” he says. “After all, as an entrepreneur, I’m also a manager and responsible for bringing our product to market. But when we have something new, I try it out right away. Experimenting, going through user journeys, identifying friction points, and seeing where things can be improved—that’s what I enjoy doing.”
“The most important thing is that we all continue to believe in the mission,” says Nguyen. Every day is a new step forward. That’s how we’ve been steadily building on our work for eight years now and seeing the fruits of our labor. What gives us courage are the reactions from our customers. Someone recently said, “This is really cool—I can hardly believe we’re already going into production!” Words like that give us new energy every time.
